GERMANY's finance minister has launched a scathing attack on the European Central Bank (ECB), as relations between the two sides hit boiling point.

Wolfgang Schaeuble lashed out at the eurozone's central bank for keeping the single currency "too low" for Germany, in a desperate attempt to deflect criticism aimed at Berlin from Donald Trump's new administration.

Angela Merkel's finance chief fired at the ECB but admitted that Germany has been one of the biggest benefactors of the currency, weakened by the bank's money-printing programmes and ultra-low interest rates.

Last week, Mr Trump's top trade adviser Peter Navarro said Germany was exploiting the US and the European Union (EU) with the "grossly undervalued" euro to gain an unfair trade advantage.

Mr Schaeuble appears to have been embarrassed by the comments.

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Wolfgang Schaeuble has blamed the ECB for the low euro after criticism from the US

“When ECB chief Mario Draghi embarked on the expansive monetary policy, I told him he would drive up Germany’s export surplus … I promised then not to publicly criticise this [policy] course. But then I don’t want to be criticised for the consequences of this policy.”

However, the minister has, in fact, publicly hit out at the ECB on a number of occasions in an attempt to save his government's popularity - even though the central bank is supposed to be independent of political pressure.